Food Rescue's entire vision, hopes, and dreams are summed up in this story from the San Diego Unified School District in California.​Janet Whited is the Environmental Specialist in the operations division of the 180 school San Diego Unified School District. Janet recently entered her first entry for the district below using Food Rescue's online tracking tool, and she sent Food Rescue an email saying:

"I have used your website, tools, and information over the years to finally get some movement in our district on Food Rescue and food waste reduction.........I manage the waste and recycling contract for the district and support our schools in their waste diversion and environmental efforts.Regarding our food rescue/donation program.......We have 19 preparation/production kitchens that serve our 180 schools, plus some charter schools. The program was started in September 2016 at one production kitchen “cluster” of schools and was expanded that school year to all of our production kitchens/schools by the end of May 2017. This 2017-18 school year started with all schools participating right off the bat. From September 2016 through April 2018, we have rescued over 290,800 lbs. of food from landfill disposal. I’m working more on formalizing Share Tables at our schools so they will be compliant with local health department regulations, which will enable us to rescue even more food/milk.

Our new system has been working for us up here in Alaska. From the first day it was a hit!!! I was expecting some resistance from teachers who don't care to have food in the classrooms and also problems with garbage on the playground but.....none so far. The high school "hungry boys" love finding the fixings for PB & jelly sandwiches from the K-5 crew. A huge problem, that I cannot fix at this time is the recess timing. It IS after lunch and a LOT of kids will come in and dump their trays just to get outside. Maybe next year. All in all... it was welcomed as a great idea and the school news crew is going to be doing a section on your program...hopefully before school closes for the summer but if not we will be off to a great start next year. We are out the 27th of this month. I'm currently working on getting a summer food program started because I know a lot of our kids do not get to eat well at home. This has only been my 2nd year running the kitchen and I've made MANY changes to our waste problem. I've been in contact with a member of the Sustainable Southeast group that is working on a partnership with the tribal authority to help run an aquaponics site. Also...UAS in Sitka is doing a study on using recycled cardboard to grow mushrooms!!!! He is getting me that contact info soon. I'm soooo excited because mushrooms are seriously my passion!!! I'm already setting up to grow shiitake and other gourmet (but really medicinal) mushrooms at home using alder that has already been dropped around the island. I'm also going to set up at the school to sell and actually make money with our lunch program. I'm looking forward to working with K-12 Food Rescue your fabulous project and help change the habits of our locals. Please feel free to contact me with any more info you may have or just to check on our progress.